Tales of the Magic Realm: Muddle, Mayhem and Music
by Eduard Tubin
Summary: This is a story where little things happen. Alfea has a 'Health Week' and Daria and James have to endure the false comparisons to human nature. Daria and James find out about the Witches and Tecna discovers how they communicate in their own language.


**Tales of the New Realm**

 **Muddle, Mayhem and Music**

"Before Daphne begins the lecture; I came to remind all students that next week will be our annual _'Health Week'_." Griselda stood pole rigid in front of the class and spoke sternly. "Our theme this year will be _'A Healthy Mind in a Healthy Body'_ and will emphasize the importance of a healthy mind for young girls."

Daria raised her hand.

"I hope you have a _real_ question." Griselda leered over her glasses.

"Can I take the next week off?" Daria asked as she lowered her hand. "'Girl' may describe my present condition – in part – given I have one ovary. As a member of the three chambered heart, live rat eating branch of the tree of life; human health doesn't apply to me."

"Are you done?" Griselda asked sharply. "See me in my office after class. I want a word with you!"

"The cafeteria hall will have exhibits." Griselda continued and cleared her throat. "You will have an opportunity to explore exhibits and we will have volunteer nurses and doctors who will take your questions. See you there."

"Thank you Headmistress Griselda." Daphne clapped and the rest of the class joined in.

Griselda looked over to Daria as she marched smartly out of the classroom.

"How did you lose your other ovary?" A fairy with crimson red hair in a long pony tail in a red shirt and a blue dress had succumbed to the urge to ask.

"The same way airlines lose luggage." Daria refused to clap and whispered over to the girl. "One stopover in Atlanta and - bam!" She slammed her palm into her hand. "My other ovary didn't come off the luggage belt. I reported this and gave them a report on the size and shape of my ovary – they told me I hadn't put a tag on it so they didn't have to do anything."

"You think we're all dumb." The fairy told Daria in a ragged, angry whisper.

"Would you rather be thought of as food?" Daria felt James tap her shoulder and point to the front of the class. "Let me know how many _'fairy points'_ my sarcasm has cost me."

"Once Daria has finished, I'll start the class." Daphne stood in front of the classroom with her arms crossed. Daria happened to have become one of her best if not meek students but Daphne had to make an effort to keep her from doing as she pleased.

* * *

"Have a seat." Griselda told Daria. "I want to discuss your often exuberant and expressive nature."

"I see." Daria sat down and twitched her wings. "I have trouble fitting into the norms of the Village?"

"Never mind the off world cultural references, Alfea educates some of the finest fairies in the Realm." Griselda tented her fingers. "I congratulate you on your grades and admit you set a high standard."

"Will I be graded on _'Health Week'_?" Daria challenged.

"We have _'Health Week'_ to help students lead better lives." Griselda sat up in her chair as she worked out what to say to avoid provoking Daria into an argument or rattling her strange student's rather prudish sensitivities. "Student participation has always been completely voluntary. No one will make you read a hygiene pamphlet and quiz you on the contents."

"I find hygiene among apes a disturbing form of nightmare fuel." Daria visibly relaxed.

"I respect diversity among the students." Griselda leaned forward and tapped her pen. "I expect the students to show proper respect. I have to take care of all of the fairies of Alfea and keep them safe. I need to have your word you'll restrain your urge to speak your mind when I give announcements."

The gold drapes above Griselda's desk window cast a certain regal glow upon her as she sat behind the heavy mahogany desk and waited for an answer.

Daria sat like a little girl on the velvet chair – not made to her scale – and hissed.

Griselda did not find this surprising. Bloom had heard this kind of hiss and it meant 'all right but _I'm not happy about it'_.

"Can I trust you?" Griselda asked just to confirm she understood that particular hiss given the rich vocabulary of calls Daria used.

"Fine." Daria stood up.

A year ago, Griselda would have taken this sort of behavior as insubordination but with Daria; directness came with the whole flying and fangs package. She let Daria leave without a word: all that Daria needed to say, she had said. Daria didn't behave in a human manner and Griselda let this slide to avoid confusing her.

* * *

"Care to donate a dollar for mental health?" Miele shook a can with a coin slot at the top in Daria's face. "Or do I just charge you a dollar for the privilege of sitting on the counter?"

"Standing...if I took you humans at all seriously; I'd have low self esteem." Daria bristled visibly.

"I might find it worth the money just to get some service." Daria shot out as she paced on the glass countertop. "I spend most of my day looking up at you creatures and my neck gets sore."

Miele worked part time in the Alfea bookstore and those parts happened to be the same part times Daria and James shopped or used the campus post office. On this Monday, Daria had come for her and Jame's mail.

"So the _Cancer Kids_ can has temporarily given way to _Mental Health Research_ can? Did they suddenly cure kid cancer?" Daria tapped her foot. "In either case, I donate a buck, seventy cents go to making cans to take loose change and the thirty cents pays for the staff needed to count out the change?"

"You live in a dark, worrisome world." Miele told Daria and placed the can back next to the cash machine.

" _Health Week_ means I have to come here _and_ avoid getting stepped on by fairies." Daria explained herself. "I can't fly over the crowd because the booths intrude into the meter between the people and the ceiling fans."

"What can I do for you?"

"Magix Post Service tells me a parcel came in for me." Daria walked over and handed off the card to Miele. "I had a new laptop on order."

"Very well...let me go see." Miele took the card and checked the back room. She returned with a parcel and a clipboard.

"One high end red laptop according to the shipping label." She said idly as she put the large flap pizza box shaped parcel on the desk. "You should get one of the other fairies to help you get that to your dorm."

"I could ask you to drop it off after you finish your shift." Daria searched her robe's pockets. "The Mental Health Research foundation will get a buck out of it from me." Daria pulled out the contents of her pocket. "They may have to get by with a paper clip and a dead tick. I was wrong on the dead part of tick."

Daria slapped her hand down on the counter and squished the tick.

* * *

"Do you ever need a dentist?" Stella asked Daria as they walked through the hall past a Health Week display set up by a cosmetic dentist. "You have all those fangs. Do you get a sore tooth?"

"Most of the time, I break them and they die and fall out." Daria followed Stella to the counter. Daria and James had to have this kind of ability because they abused their teeth so openly and having human teeth would have left them with useless dentures. "I can regrow teeth and fangs endlessly."

"Do you need to brush?" Stella had spent a lifetime brushing and caring for teeth that she hoped would last a lifetime and retain their white color. Daria threw them away and her teeth had a light pink color, not off white like humans but because they lived such short lives; even the hefty fangs looked _'perfect'_.

"I brush to keep my mouth clean of annoying debris." Daria picked up a pamphlet for tooth whitening products that bleached the teeth and found out a fact she didn't know. "I thought humans grew new teeth – I've seen kids with front teeth missing."

"We don't." Stella looked admiringly at a poster on the far wall showing tooth jewelery: gold studs and jewels. "We have to keep the same teeth for life."

"How can I help you two girls?" A young brunette dental hygienist in a light blue lab coat approached Stella. "Have you heard about the new _'Solar White'_ tooth sealing procedure? Discoloration does not have to be for life."

The hygienist looked Daria in the eye.

"My teeth, like me, are the perfect products of evolution." Daria opened her mouth and her fangs lowered into place. "Any tampering would be an insult to God. God created Adam and Eve – then He took what he learned to created my angular perfection."

"Wow..." The hygienist said almost raising her voice to a whistle as she examined Daria's reptilian gob. Daria had over sixty pinkish teeth which showed no blemishes but when it came to daggers, Daria had a mouth full of sharp fangs designed to inject venom into live prey. "I can see why you think that."

"She doesn't have problems with self confidence." Stella explained.

* * *

James squeaked and squealed then hissed.

"Pretty boy, what's got into _you?_ " Flora asked as she met up with James standing in the middle of a large crowd assembled in the hall.

James hissed when a tall fairy's foot landed too close for his comfort.

"I want my apple but the hallway to the cafeteria is so crowded." James complained as Flora picked him up and put him on her shoulders. "A chiropractor about three times my height nearly landed a shoe on me. He must have been recruiting new customers."

"Lucky he didn't meet with Daria." Flora let out a small giggle.

James balanced on Flora's shoulders like a small child. Both Daria and James had minds made for flight and they disliked seeing the world from their eye level and not having an easy escape route over a crowd or out of a small space.

James peeped periodically: Daria and James did this when nervous or anxious. When Flora entered the cafeteria; he calmed down and centered his delicate gaze upon the red apples put on display.

"Hi Flora." Tecna approached her and James with a cafeteria tray with a decorous fruit salad on a pink plate. "Bet you'd like some of this."

Tecna handed James a piece of orange and he held it like a small monkey in his hands and ate it. James and Daria were technically omnivores as they ate fruit to obtain the Vitamin C their bodies didn't make.

James jumped down and headed for the cafeteria display with an eager attitude.

"Witches?" Flora saw three surly looking girls heading toward the cafeteria.

"Griffen allows some of her students who were interested to come to the health fair." Tecna told Flora. "That's why the school looks so crowded. I saw some of her students in the courtyard."

Hiss!

"Hey!" James protested. "Why did you take my apple?"

"Please don't harass customers or you'll be asked to leave." The cashier said in a commanding tone.

"I feel so scared." One of the witches told James and tossed the apple to her friend.

"I have to go stand up for James." Tecna handed her lunch to Flora and strode off toward the girls wagging her finger. "I hate those kinds of bullies."

"Can you give the apple back to him?" Tecna asked sternly at the tall witch with the purple hair. "He had his heart set on it and I saw you take it from his hands."

"Here you go, you freak." The girl tossed him the apple.

James held it close to his chest and rattled his quills and hissed softly as he walked off to the cashier.

"I warn you to leave him alone." Tecna scolded the three girls. "James has a kind, rather shy personality and looks meek. He lives on campus here with his sister who won't ask twice to take you apart and eat your brains out of your skulls. I'll escort you off campus and have Miss Faragonda report your conduct."

Tecna took a quick picture with her phone and then motioned to the witches to leave.

* * *

"Are you alive?" The nurse asked Daria as the cardiac monitor's LCD screen glowed red and showed a very impossible cardiac rhythm. "I should get the defibrillator..."

Daria hissed loudly and rattled her quills.

"What the hell does that mean?" Daria lay on the couch. "Don't tell me the big brain boys like Salk and Pasteur and House didn't have the _'alive'_ thing worked out?"

"Just that the monitor says you have a pulse of two hundred and forty beats per minute." The nurse answered Daria nervously.

"Perfectly normal for me."

"Your friend Mirta has a _normal_ heart rate of seventy." the nurse pointed to the red haired girl on the bed next to Daria.

"You offered me a juice box." Daria quipped. "I didn't hear you ask if I were – ugh – a mammal."

"I didn't want to rush to judgment."

"Get a free cardiac check and we'll give you a juice box." Daria repeated the selling point. "Maybe I quit listening at 'juice box' because I love juice in a box. Given that I have wings, fangs and a three chambered heart; you'd have noticed."

"You'll get your juice box." The nurse said kindly. "I didn't intend to offend you."

"You didn't." Mirta said shyly.

"Can I talk to you?" James held his juice box and stood next to Mirta.

"How did you get a juice box?" Daria asked.

"I took an _'alternatives lifestyle pamphlet'_." James gave Daria the box. "Something about my attendance at a fairy school made them look kindly on me."

"Have a seat and lay back." Daria commanded James. "The nurse will put a plastic clamp on your finger and tell you you're dead."

"Wouldn't I know?" James asked incontinently. "Stuff stops happening to you?"

"What is a normal pulse for you guys?" The nurse asked.

"Two or three hundred depending on what I'm doing?" James replied calmly.

* * *

An abominable hiss rattled the cafeteria.

Stella looked over in the direction of the hall then to Bloom.

"Which one of the _'hissing balls of death'_ made that noise?" Stella asked Bloom.

"Daria..." Bloom lifted her fork of chicken spinach salad. "James listens to my advice and he wouldn't go to the clinical psychologist's booth and take a mental health quiz. Daria found out that by human standards, she's abnormal."

"Uhh...shouldn't we check it out." Stella placed her fork on her empty plate.

Bloom had come to read the hissing of her best reptile friends. She had an appetite and didn't want her salad to grow stale but this hiss fell in the category of fierce unfiltered anger.

"Yes we should." Bloom set her fork down and sighed. "The last time I heard that hiss; I had to use a fire extinguisher to keep her from eating a printer."

"Daria!" Bloom called out.

"It never ceases to amaze me," Stella watched Daria shatter a perspex pamphlet holder with her teeth as she hissed at the psychiatric nurse she had cornered, "how she can chew through anything."

"All right!" Bloom shouted and approached Daria who had her wings and quills fully out. "Do I have to grab the fire extinguisher?"

"Quite the little monster you've got." The middle aged red haired nurse made his pronouncement. "She has real anger issues."

Bloom grasped Daria's collar and gave her a sharp smack on the head. Daria softened her hissing.

"All of her kind have anger issues." Bloom sighed again. "You don't get a set of teeth like hers without _that_ attitude."

"She came at me!" The man spoke in a rattled voice.

Daria growled.

"I don't have anger issues!" Daria snapped.

"By the standards of sharks, no you don't." Stella patted Daria's head. "Now close up your wings - Sweetness."

"I will have a talk with her." Bloom promised. "Stop rattling..."

"I think I deserve an explanation and an apology from your friend – _Sweetness_." The nurse had trouble accepting that as her name.

"All very reasonable requests but she doesn't listen to reason when she loses her temper." Bloom replied diplomatically and pulled Daria back from the nurse. "She needs to take a time out and cool down."

* * *

"I'm Shane and Bloom said you were _'James – The Sane One'_?" The red haired man offered his hand and James looked at it.

"I have never chewed a computer printer apart – a rather mundane standard for sanity." James replied in his shy manner. "Bloom sent me to speak on behalf of Daria and explain why she took exception to you."

"And?" Shane sorted through a pile of pamphlets.

"Among our species, sexism isn't a prejudice; it's part of our wiring." James paced around the booth nervously. "Daria – my sister's name is Daria – comes by her nickname _Sweetness_ because Bitch Queen From Hell comes across as rude by the standards of the fairies here at Alfea. She has an instinctive loathing for human men and barely finds me agreeable."

"She sounds like a fine person." Shane meant that sarcastically.

"We're flying reptiles not people, and by our standards, Daria has a fine functional mind." James did his best not to take any offense to being called a _'person'_. "Our species lives in the deserts of Solaria and maybe that requires a certain amount of insanity."

"Do tell." Shane sorted out his pamphlet. "She ate my display."

"We eat our own young." James came up with this odd reply. "Our species does this in the wild. The head female of the pack will raid nests and eat the male chicks."

"How do you cope?" Shane asked out of intellectual curiosity.

"I sleep with one eye open." James tried and failed to pick up a pamphlet off the floor. James had no way to bend his hips enough to reach the pamphlet but he treated Shane to a cognitive novelty. James flew down to the pamphlet and picked it up with his hand. The more time spent with James, the less like a little person he appeared and Shane noticed his magenta eyes – huge for any animal and how alien he looked. "You must know we're the first of our species to live with humans and our two species are as different as species can be."

"She shocked me." Shane confessed. "I've had to deal with violent people but I didn't learn how to defend myself against fangs and those huge wings."

"Can I ask a personal question?" Shane finished sorting his pamphlets and began laying them in grouped themes on his table. "How did you get the names Daria and James?"

"Bloom named us after the main characters on a show she watched as a kid – Daria. James actually was a male take on Jane – her best friend in the cartoon." James handed off the pamphlet.

* * *

James could communicate directly when he had the need.

He let out a loud, sharp hiss when a yellow high heel nearly landed on him.

Anyone familiar with rattlesnakes had a start when they heard the quills rattle and then the loud hiss because such noises had an inherent ability to scare off potential threats.

"Why not leave the windows open so we can fly into the cafeteria?" James muttered to himself.

The owner of the high heel heard the hiss and then a series of softer hisses.

"Geez….sorry." She told James dismissively.

James let out another hiss and thrust out his wings when a first year fairy nearly knocked him over. He lived in the element of air and he flew over the crowd in the hall and headed toward the cafeteria in frustration over his close calls with humans.

"Is that your brother kicking up all that fuss?" Stella waited with Daria in the cafeteria dinner line.

"He has a disturbing tendency to have a personality." Daria tapped her foot. "Males ought to take being stepped on without complaint but James has limits."

James landed next to his sister and folded his wings. Neither James nor Daria were allowed to fly inside the campus buildings because they made running with scissors in the halls wearing a blindfold look as safe as a desk job. Griselda made it clear flying fell under the same rule as running in the hall and was prohibited. Daria and James blew off this rule and flew into, through, and out of buildings because they belonged to the 'don't get caught' school of moral thought. Given their incredible eyesight and speed, they never did get caught.

"A witch nearly sent a heel through my brain." James commented calmly but with his oddly charming degree of candor. "One of our own knocked me over. Why not save us all the trouble and leave a window open so we can access the cafeteria."

"All the bugs would get in." Stella tried to explain.

"I fail to see a problem," James shrugged, "Unless the chef cooks them."

"The school will return to normal at the end of the week." Stella assured the unnerved James. "You won't have to worry about being stomped on while walking around the place."

"I want a word with – this one." A witch with turquoise hair and a dark blue shirt approached James. She pointed a finger in his face. "You should watch where you're going!"

"Why did Bloom's people stop burning _witches_? You are a form of renewable energy and much safer and less polluting than nuclear power or coal." In so far as Daria couldn't work up a smile; that line could not be mistaken as anything but her angular sarcasm. Stella found the line hilarious but had to refrain from laughing.

"Oh!" The young witch balled her fists.

Daria perched on Stella's shoulders.

"Before we all do something we'll regret..." Stella read Daria as working herself into a a good rage. "Care to sit down and talk this over? I know James and he's never deliberately rude; maybe you scared him."

"He hissed at me."

"I nearly got trod on." James said in his formal yet honest manner. "You might have noticed I'm not tall."

"Tell your freaks not to mess with the witches." The girl walked off.

"Don't say what you want to say." Stella cautioned Daria. "Don't plan what you're planning because the witches are guests at Alfea."

* * *

"Welcome to Cloud Tower." Daria told James as they flew in a wide circle around the dark brooding tower. "You won't find a darker hive of villainy outside of politics but _remember_ we have the upper hand."

James looked at the surly clouds churning beneath him and felt the cold wind on his wings.

"Shouldn't I know what upper hand we have?" James watched a flash of lightning crackle through the clouds around the tower, heard the distant rumble and saw the green glow of ionized air fade from his view. "I'm drawing a blank."

"We have immunity from spells aimed at us." Daria spiraled down toward the towers.

"I keep thinking we ought to wear skin tight catsuits." James followed her lead. "Why do you want to break into Cloud Tower?"

"We're visiting." Daria homed in on a dark parapet that suited her need to enter unseen. "I won't answer that first question but I'll ask you to take a close look at your build next time you pass by a mirror."

Daria landed on the ledge and looked in her window.

"Looks like the headquarters for our state owned television network." James landed softly and looked in the window. "RAI Magix - Efficient and free of any entertainment but they still get ten bucks out of every cable or Internet subscription."

Daria took out her phone and shone it through the purple glass of the window.

"We can get in through this room." Daria put away her phone and took out a large paper clip. "The room houses the gear to run the lifts so no one will notice."

"Unless we trip off an alarm." James said pessimistically.

"I doubt we have to worry about alarms. What would you steal?" Daria said in an irritated voice as she pulled the window open. "When did someone last make off with a lift?"

Daria grabbed James collar and pulled him into the room. She brushed off her clothes and began formulating the next part of her plan as walked across the room and turned on the lights.

"I won't be taking the lift anytime soon." James looked up at the traction drive that hoisted the lift car and the layers of spider webbing caked on it. "I don't know squat about lifts but this looks as if steam power runs it."

"My name is Headmistress Griffen." A tall pale lady stood in the doorway. "You are Daria and James and _are in big trouble_."

* * *

"How long can she keep us here?" James sat on the edge of a bunk in a jail cell carved out of the naked rock. A crystal served as a dirty shade for the flickering compact fluorescent that illuminated the cell in a horrid pink.

"Long enough to read Das Kapital in the original German." Daria sat on the bunk and fidgeted with her phone. "Think of how urbane we'll sound when we can quote Karl Marx."

"I hate to think of that as our punishment." James sat on the hard stone floor. "God knows I don't aspire to be a member of the proletariat or to learn German. I fail to see how quoting a dead economist in German would make me sound urbane."

"I got two bars on my phone." Daria ended the conversation. "Maybe we can have someone come by and bail us out."

James could hear Griselda yelling over the phone.

"I fail to see how yelling at me _will_ help." Daria yelled back as she held the phone at arms length. "If you don't help us, you won't be able to yell at us in person and enjoy the _full_ experience."

James took out his phone and began doing searches on it.

"Griselda said she has sent someone to pick us up." Daria tossed her phone to the side. "I can't imagine how she has managed to stay single so long with her charm and beauty."

"As long as she doesn't pull on my ear like Griffen did." James looked at his phone.

Daria went to look out the small barred window.

"Did you know Cloud Tower offers courses on Curses and Mayhem?" James had called up the student calendar on his phone.

"I dream of becoming an insurance broker." Daria jumped as she peered out the window in the door. "Why learn magic and mayhem when you can underwrite polices people pay to protect them from that?"

"Want fries with that?" James came back with his reply. "Learn those words."

"Naw! Cheap robots from Zenith will end up taking those jobs." Daria returned to her spot on the bunk. "We need jobs that allow us to exploit human fear and greed. Insurance broker, mortician and marketing are the future. They have lots of religions so opportunity exists in that racket."

"I hope they're doing okay." Stella told Bloom as they followed Headmistress Griffen down the winding passage to the cells.

Bang!

Hiss!

"I think they're just fine." Bloom told Griffen as the dull metallic boom resounded down the dark hall. "I should have warned you that Daria has demonstrated a real talent for getting out of anything."

"Solid metal?" Griffen stopped to see Daria standing on the prison cell door laying on the ground.

"Lets go find out." Bloom said invitingly.

"I heard you coming." Daria looked down at the door like a defeated enemy. "I wanted to be prepared."

"Who puts the door hinge on the inside of the cell?" James walked out holding to forged iron pins in his hand. "Even a chicken could have figured _this_ out."

"Well...we used to use these cells to keep trolls." Griffen crossed her arms and tensed up. "And the door was supposed to have a bar holding it shut!"

"We would have just let it fall _into_ the room." James replied almost proudly.

* * *

"I demand to know _why_ you broke into Cloud Tower?" Griffen asked in a threatening voice. Griffen slowly walked forward but neither Daria or James made any attempt to look intimidated.

"We met some of your students this afternoon so we were curious about their school." Daria stepped off the door. "Come on over, we'll watch Buffy episodes."

Daria lied but did not fool Griffen despite the odd fact Daria lacked any aura.

"Can we go now?" James stood on the door. "I don't need the Headmistress to grab me by my ears."

"I'd much rather not have to keep them in my school." Griffen said in a hard determined voice as she turned around and raised her hand in frustration. "I can't tell which is the male and which is the female so it would be forever confusing."

"I take it that it takes two of you to operate this pink thing?" Daria stood in front of the Winx Magic car.

"I had to come up and _bail_ you two out of Griffen's jail." Bloom scolded Daria for her abrupt sarcasm. "Faragonda didn't want you guys flying off and causing more murder and mayhem."

"I needed more time to practice driving." Stella admitted coyly. "We decided to take the time to come up here and get you guys..."

"Oh man..." Daria felt Bloom grasp her collar as she shook her head.

"Can we get on with this?" Bloom guided Daria to the passenger side door. "Cloud Tower has paid parking."

"The witches jack the stereo." James completed the thought.

Daria and James sat in the back, did up their seatbelt as Stella and Bloom sat in the front seat with Stella taking the driver's side.

"Make yourself useful." Bloom reached up on the dash and handed a piece of paper to James. "When we get to the parking garage gate, wave this in front of the red light."

James held the ticket in his hands and reminded Bloom of a raccoon.

Stella fidgeted with the mirrors and backed up.

"You behave." Bloom wagged her finger at Daria. "Stella has the kindness to come out and spare you a night in Cloud Tower and so don't _bother_ her."

"I didn't say anything." Daria hissed.

Bloom pointed her finger at her friend for a moment.

"Will this pink convertible become our tomb?"

"Daria." Bloom said in a warning tone as she faced forward.

"James!" Daria scolded.

"I'll hold out the ticket so the gate will raise." The long suffering James sighed. "As long as we all agree we drive on the right hand side of the road; I'm good with that."

Bleep! Click!

The car park garage gate opened.

"Whenever I say: _'I didn't know she could do that!'_ , I never expected it to apply in a situation where she stayed quiet for an hour." Bloom whispered to Stella as they drove along a two lane country road. Bloom found it odd because Stella had music playing and Dames and Daria found human music irritating as their hearing and human hearing worked under different principles.

"Are you alright?" Bloom leaned back in her seat. "You two have had such a calm and relaxed attitude to this road trip."

"I thought if I disturbed Stella; we'd end up in the lake or driving through a big truck because we can't _apparate_ through it." Daria explained herself in the calm, yet somehow unsettled voice of an air traffic controller. "You can but James and I are magically impaired."

"You can fly." Bloom reminded Daria of her key strength. "We're almost back at Alfea but we're late. Faragonda will want to see both of you first thing before classes – she was most displeased that you left for Cloud Tower."

Daria and James had flown over Cloud Tower on a few occasions but they had no reasons to take an interest in its inmates until this day. Since they flew at such high altitudes, Griffen had not even noticed the flights. Red Fountain had witnessed them flying over their airspace; again taking little interest given that both places had little food to support them and the long flight made it less rewarding to investigate such places.

Stella pulled into the car park, turned off the car and released the door locks.

"I'm going to go to bed." Stella handed the keys to Bloom then stretched and yawned. "We've had a long day."

Daria and James unfolded themselves as they stood up out of the car and stretched their wings.

"Faragonda will want you two waiting to visit her." Bloom told James and Daria and jingled the keys. "She will explain why Cloud Tower isn't the place for you two to hunt."

Daria and James had a curious nature and Daria had a tenacity for holding grudges but most of the time, they protected hunting grounds near Alfea as the forest had long had protection from the school and had a huge population of rats, raccoons and any number of bugs.

"Besides that, we don't want you wandering off and getting in trouble." Bloom walked with her friends toward the lift. "Some parts of Magix are dangerous even for you. We wouldn't want you wandering off into a tribe of orcs or trolls."

* * *

Daria had not enjoyed her morning because she had to sit and listen to a lecture from Headmistress Faragonda that had lasted an hour.

Stella suspected Daria was in a bad mood and might erupt in a ball of hissing death because she approached Daria and heard her hissing softly while walking solemnly across the quad. No one had yet cracked the code, Stella and the rest of the Winx could read some of the hisses James and Daria used as language like. To Stella, Daria sounded like she was politely cursing.

"Want to grab some lunch?" Stella offered as she met Daria in the courtyard of Alfea. "Here, take my hand and we'll get you through the _'Health Week'_ maze with less hiss and bother."

James flew past and flew in a tight circle around Daria and Stella. She let out a quick, modest hiss and James hissed back as he landed next to her.

"I wish I could speak your language." Stella told both her friends. "You must have so much to say and yet we can't understand you because translation spells don't work on you two."

Magic was _Stella's_ approach. Tecna had tried to figure out how to make a computer decode the hisses and even her skills had not made much progress.

"You'd need to have my brain." Daria explained. "The rest comes naturally."

Stella looked rather confused by Daria's obtuse reply.

"Listen carefully..." Daria told Stella. "I'll start talking with James but in a low voice."

Psssssss…pop!

James twitched his ears.

"Weep! Weep! Weep! Whoop!

"Now I have his attention." Daria proudly told Stella. "Now I repeat those tones to make sure we're in tune. If we don't do this; the rest might get hopelessly scrambled."

"Weep! Weep! Weep! Whoop!

"This takes concentration." Daria told Stella.

Stella heard a pure tone that sounded like a high pitched 'pop', a pause and then a ragged set of tones that made her think Daria had a bad case of feedback. The effect sounded like a fuzzy or drunken kind of bird call with a sharp raspy tone to it with a warbling note that varied in intensity but always matched the tone of that initial 'pop'.

"What are you saying?" Stella asked when the sound or concert ended a few seconds later with a set of tones that then concluded with a low hissing high note.

"She told me what she saw when she looked at you." James explained as his ears twitched. "I'll do it in real time but your ears will hear our hiss."

Hiss!

"Said the same thing - 'here is Stella'." Daria told Stella.

* * *

One of the booths set up by _Magix Occupational Health_ had a very accurate hearing test set up. They had the mandate to promote hearing protection and hearing health for work places. They had a practical need to help people protect their hearing and had the best testing rig available. They even tested ultrasound frequencies.

"Sit still and hit the red button when you can hear something and then hit the red button again when you can't hear anything." The occupational health nurse explained to James.

He had no trouble completing the test.

He had a hearing range of 160 hz up to 100 khz.

He could struggle to hear sounds below and active above middle C but he was very sensitive to sounds above the human hearing range.

"What color do you hear?" Tecna asked James and blushed. She played a frequency of 71 khz over the top of the line head set.

"Magenta." James replied.

Tecna did a tone sweep.

If James heard a tone centered on 75 khz, he reported red. If it centered around 71 khz, he reported blue. This was very weird.

She asked him to send her a picture and placed a title card with a test pattern in front of him.

"Tell me." She asked.

He did.

Tecna fell back.

"How did they discover analogue television!" She gasped.

"What!?" James held onto his headphones. "It is weak but I can tell you want to send me a picture of a colored set of stripes."

Tecna changed the picture and let the signal play for a moment.

Tecna held up her hand.

"What did you hear?" She asked.

"A cat sleeping on a couch." James replied correctly.

"How did you ever evolve this talent?" Tecna whispered to herself. That James had language was never in doubt but that his species could send such detailed images blew her mind.

* * *

"Playing mind games with Daria might have very bad results." Musa cautioned Tecna. "She has never once laughed."

Tecna had her set up on the cafeteria table. Daria and James always came to the cafeteria after Daphne's History of Magic class to buy their lunch – a piece of fruit or juice box.

"If I don't miss my guess..." Tecna hit the 'Enter' key when she heard that characteristic hiss coming from the main hall.

"I hope you didn't say anything offensive." Musa held the opinion that Daria took offense at almost anything.

Daria walked right up to Tecna.

"If I see adverts, you die!" Daria pointed her finger at Tecna as she stood at their table. "Why did you want to talk about the SECAM test pattern? Want to give me my own Community Access show?"

"Sorry – I still find this really cool." Tecna laughed meekly.

"You speak with an accent, though." Daria sat down as James walked up to the table. "You have wobbly reds."

"I need to wear one of those vests you see road crews wearing." James told Tecna and Musa quietly. "I keep nearly getting trampled by fairies."

James hissed quietly at the speaker, not in irritation but as if he had something to say to it.

"Embrace the monotony." James found the speaker and thus Tecna's simulation of language quite boring. "Can you turn it off? Please?"

"This is a test of the _Alfea Emergency Broadcast System_." Daria sarcastically explained. "Had this been a real emergency - which around here usually has something to do with shoes – we'd all be panicking."

Daria flew past Tecna's window and hissed loudly.

Daria and James had grown more vocal now they had someone interested in their language and they hissed prolifically as soon as they saw one of their friends.

"That is her 'up' song." Musa had come to recognize subtle differences in Daria's hisses or 'songs'. She had come to appreciate them as the complex language of a fellow being and the product of an alien mind.

"The Blind Watchmaker must have had much too much spare time." Tecna listened as the hiss faded out.

Tecna called them 'songs' and Daria and James had six of them. No one had figured out what these 'songs' meant but Tecna had dubbed them: up, down, charm, strange, top and bottom. She named them after quarks because each 'song' followed the pattern of quarks found in the protons and neutrons.

"One 'up' and two 'down' song." Musa told Tecna. For Musa, this made Daria and James special kinds of creatures because they used 'music' to communicate. "Then two 'up' and one 'down'."

"I wonder if those calls mean anything or she sings because she talks to herself and she likes to be heard." Tecna disliked Daria at times but the little demon had forced her to rethink old ideas. Tecna had used artificially intelligent computers but machines couldn't match the intricate and alien minds of Daria and James.

"Like any child, she loves to sing and express herself." Musa speculated and shrugged her shoulders. She discovered how much learning about Daria and James' language made them more sympathetic and humane creatures. "She's a showoff and now she has us as an audience."

" _Convergent evolution_...big time." Tecna told Musa in an awe inspired voice. "She calls out in order to keep her group together – like a pod of killer whales. Both as predators and as pack hunters and they have the same way of going about their lives."


End file.
